It is hard to believe that three weeks have passed since I wrote about the changes in the weir on the Ebbw between Aberbeeg and Llanilleth. So much has changed over the last weeks. The big yellow dinosaurs of heavy plant and the men have been busy despite many delays such as the arrival of reinforced concrete, the trucks arriving late in the day and the men, having done all the work reshaping the top weir ready for the thick liquid mix to be poured in, have had to stand around waiting, so they could get on with the job.
With only twenty minutes setting time, it didn't help that the loads had to be put into the outstretched arm of the digger and quickly poured into the shuttering where eager hands spread it and then shaped it into an even surface as fast as it was hardening.
These were the scenes on the 28th of August ... during the fourth week.
On th 5th September, a week later, this side was complete and having re-diverted the river to allow for safe working conditions, the far side was ready for its concrete mix.
Five days on & the other side had been filled and hardened, leaving just the centre section.
All this involved the repositioning of tons of rocks and the 2 ton concrete blocks and then when the concrete had set, moving them all round again for the next part of the plan.
The guys are a friendly bunch and put up with us locals regularly checking progress and asking all sorts of questions about why and what as well as photographing them working.
Now ... to bring you fully up to date, here are some of the scenes from this afternoon.
The top weir is finally almost complete, there is less of an angle to flow down and with the new design of the river bed, now a mixture of three ton rocks and a whole lot of smaller stuff in between, allowing small pools for the fish to rest in. And up either side, the black eel runs can clearly be seen and ... as we witnessed today, there are certainly eels in there.
<<<Further down something was going on and I could hear lots of laughter. But as I walked down to investigate the cause of all the hilarity I was impressed by the new colours and shapes in the river bed, the water running clean and freely along its newly designed stretch. It has been a fascinating six weeks watching all this work in progress, the river changing from day to day and learning from the lads about how all the alterations are leading towards an end result. Now the work will concentrate on the lower weir which is the one going through dramatic changes.
The whole area above the weir has become an untidy, muddy set of very, slush, muddy pools and ... I found out why my friends were laughing so much. The men were there with a child's fishing net trying to catch trout and eels and move them to safety in the river before they carried on changing the shape of the river bed. The trout were easier to catch but eels are, by nature, slippery creatures and netting them wasn't an easy job. It was like watching three grown men become kids again as they splashed about in the murky, disturbed water and it had us all grinning and laughing. Meanwhile the mad mutt was making friends with a rather lovely female spaniel and both were chasing tennis balls (an easier catch). 
The digger made a small channel and we watched amazed as one eel, about three foot long, found it's way out into the fast flow of diverted water. If you look carefully to where the man is looking at what seems like a black stick in the fawn coloured muddiness ... that's the eel, snaking through the sludge, escaping to freedom and fresher water. The trout were easier to net and as yet ... not big enough to eat, but it was lovely to see one about to be set free and at least for the time being it can explore the new landscape of the river.
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